Posted
by
timothyon Wednesday March 17, 2010 @05:33PM
from the planted-by-von-braun-in-1967 dept.

Chroniton writes "NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish 'frolicking' beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live. The odds of finding two complex lifeforms after drilling only an 8-inch-wide hole suggests there may be much more. And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?"

60% of the Earth is filled with oceans. In some parts they go down as much as Mount Everest goes up. That means over half of our planet is still not searched. Some of the found fishes in there are really weird as well and look like aliens.

For the ocean to "dry up" the water would have to be removed from the planet. That requires two energy inputs: first, enough energy to boil all the water in all the oceans. Second, enough energy to raise the velocity of each molecule of water vapor to the escape velocity.

I won't bother calculating the energy required to reach escape velocity, but the energy required just to boil the oceans into water vapor is around 3e27 J. Using another value I calculated e

It will happen. The Earth will, barring some major perturbation of its orbit, become a dry, desolate world as the sun ages and expands. The water will not boil off, but will instead simply evaporate. As the water circulates to the upper atmosphere, it will be subject to reactions that break it apart into hydrogen and oxygen, and the hydrogen will simply fly off into space, too light to be held by the Earth's gravity. The oxygen will remain, but with little hydrogen to bind it, there will be less and les

Boiling is the vaporization that takes place when the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the surrounding atmospheric pressure. It is different from evaporation in that boiling involves a substantial portion (usually all) of the liquid mass while evaporation involves only that portion at the surface.

An atom of hydrogen getting hit by, say, an oxygen molecule will be accelerated to a greater degree than a nitrogen molecule. The nitrogen molecule will be influenced to a greater degree than the hydrogen atom by Earth's gravity, as gravity reduces its velocity to a greater relative degree than that of the hydrogen atom. The hydrogen atom goes flying off into space, while the nitrogen molecule arcs back into the atmosphere.

The nitrogen molecule will be influenced to a greater degree than the hydrogen atom by Earth's gravity, as gravity reduces its velocity to a greater relative degree than that of the hydrogen atom.

No. All matter is equally affected by gravity. The amount of force that gravity applies to a given bit of matter is directly proportional to that bit of matter's mass.
Yes, more massive things require more force to be pulled down to Earth, but more massive things are pulled on more strongly by gravity. This is why all things fall at the same rate in a vacuum, and why a nitrogen atom in space will be pulled towards Earth at the exact same rate as a hydrogen atom, and at the exact same rate that a VW beetle

But the average kinetic energy of a gas molecule depends on the temperature, but not the mass of the molecule.

For a lighter molecule to have the same kinetic energy as a more massive molecule, it has to be moving faster.

If the molecular speed exceeds the escape velocity of the earth, the molecule will escape from the atmosphere. Helium is one of the most common elements in the universe and it's constantly being replenished on earth due to radioactive decay, but there's practically none of it in the atmosphe

It might become uninhabitable to the existing life forms that live there, but you utterly failed to get the point of this discovery.

Life exists in lots of places and ways that we thought weren't possible.

Its really silly to much such an absolute statement as yours. If the oceans 'dried up' whatever that actually means then life may die out, but its more likely it would continue on in another form. Just like the life 30k under the surface of the ocean in volcanic vents, 600 feet down in ice, or hi

There is a sure-fire test: If you hook one, and pull it up, and it just sits there gasping and looking stupid, the fish look like aliens. If its angry compatriots descend upon you and give you a thorough anal probing, the aliens look like fish...

I understand that Nuclear submarines have been under the North polar ice cap many times, surely someone's sent one under the Southern ice sheets by now? Obviously the continent would get in the way of going too far under but even so.....

I wonder if the relevant governments would be willing to release confirmatory data.

Sending your nuclear armed and powered submarine under the northern ice sheet is the only way to place these weapons along the north coast of the USSR (conversely North America) during the northern winter when the entire region is icebound. A lot of data was gathered so that the parties knew where the ice was passable and thin enough to surface without fatally damaging the submarine. The proximity to a perceived foe and suicidal political imperative to do this does not exist in the south.

Ice is a poruis material. If theres water under it, it wicks up into the ice, carrying life with it before it freezes solid. This happens constantly, forming new ice over time and spreading out. As such, ice shelves over the open ocean almost certainly are teaming with various forms of life that can survive at least short term in those conditions. Its not uncommon at all.

600 feet in ice with no easily available source of large quanties of energy (as we think of energy needed to sustain life) and the fa

To little? OK ONE... HUNDRED... BILLION... DOLLARS!!!!
caps text capts text geez. Don't you hate it when you have to keep writing rubbish just to get around a stupid filter. Where's the Dr. eeevil exception?!?

A more likely explanation is that the samples were contaminated by the instruments. If we look in the Bible there is no mention that God made this lifeform, therefore the most logical explanation is contamination.

And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?

Because Europa is not Antarctica. We get it. Life can live in ice-covered oceans and it can even be complex. This is all idle speculation until someone actually probes Europa to see what's under there.

Of course this is just speculation. However, this broadens the range of environments where we know that complex life, and even self sustaining ecosystems can exist. And that is the true purpose of the Drake equation. Not giving us a probability for life elsewhere, but rather defining the parameter envelope we think is able to sustain life. Every discovery of more extreme ecosystems broadens that envelope - and that is interesting in itself. Now let's get our arse to Europa and Drill, Baby, Drill!

If you're going to point out that Europa is different from Antartica at least take the time to point out how it's different. Namely, the complex life in Antarctica evolved in different, more comfortable conditions. Complex life under hundreds of feet of ice on Earth says nothing about whether or not it's possible for life to begin or become complex in those conditions. It just says that once started, life is very adaptable.

If you're going to point out that Europa is different from Antartica at least take the time to point out how it's different. Namely, the complex life in Antarctica evolved in different, more comfortable conditions. Complex life under hundreds of feet of ice on Earth says nothing about whether or not it's possible for life to begin or become complex in those conditions. It just says that once started, life is very adaptable.

But did life really begin in such "comfortable" conditions? I don't think its too far-fetched to imagine most life beginning in even less habitable conditions than it currently thrives in.

Natural selection seems to suggest that life must be more robust than the pressures of its environment, and that life only becomes less robust if it can afford to do so. Not the other way around.

Some say that life on Earth started (and evolved) around hydrothermal vents where there is no sunlight. The get their energy through a process known as chemosynthesis. If true, life on any ocean bearing planet could become common if not expected. Going to Europa will change those odds one way or another.

except Europa. Attempt no landings there."... and as far as I can tell from wikipedia, it seems 'we' haven't yet? No landers, no hurling things into the surface to see what gets thrown up, no nothing... just flyby missions. hmm..

The question is where did life evolve first in the solar system or did it evolve somewhere else first and was transported here. If panspermia is correct and life can be transported over past the ISM between star systems it is likely any place in the galaxy that is hit by this ' stuff ' will have life.

But it gives us hope. Just imagine if the opposite was true; we could never find life in extreme environments. We'd probably be saying looking for life on other planets is most likely a dead end. Instead, life keeps popping up everywhere, even places you could never imagine.

Um, no....Lysianassidae is the correct term for the actual family of amphipods; lysianassid would be the correct term for a member of that family, kinda like how the name of our family is Hominidae but we are called hominids.

These creatures probably depend on free oxygen to live, which comes from plant life on the unglaciated parts of the Earth's surface.
This is not an argument against the possibility of life on Europa, it is an argument against assuming that the environment under Europa's ice is as life-friendly that under Antarctica's.

There's apparently more Earth left to see! Before we venture to Mars, lets go look under this ice. The environment is a lot friendlier, comparatively speaking, and there's less distance to cross before we arrive!

There's actually plenty of funding available... for example, in the USA people spend $34 billion per year on their pets. If people thought it was important, they could devote, say, half of their pet-support money to sea and/or space exploration, and that would be plenty to do a lot of exploration of both areas.

But the truth is, most people just don't put that much importance on exploration. Sad, but true.

It's been hotter, most likely, but we can be pretty sure that it hasn't had the same energy inputs as the Earth. Heat from the initial formation, yes (though more rapidly dissipating than it did from the much more massive Earth). Sustained, fairly consistent sunlight for billions of years? Not so much.

"...And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?"

Well, because the original prototypes developed in warmer climes and adapted to colder environments later on.

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high about complex life on Europa.

Complex life has evolved in the most punishing environments on earth, 4000 Metres below the surface of the ocean, in volcanic vents (water has a PH of 2.8). Not only complex life but complete ecosystems (these are kind of needed to support

We know that humans have traveled to the moon. Humans similar in biological content to the famous greek philosopher Plato. So, is it possible that Plato traveled to the Moon?

Plato was a smart guy, but he couldn't have landed on the moon. Landing on the moon required us to adapt well enough to a very hospitable environment before we could even reach the moon's harsh landscape. I think We might discover the same is true of life. Its more likely to develop in a very hospitable environment and then over time develop the skills necissiary to thrive in harsher climates. I do think we might be able to transplant our extreme lifeforms to other planets. In the same way a lunar rover would probably do okay on the surface of mars as well.

Your implied concept of what is "comfortable" for life involves the mother of all selection biases. We don't know everything about the state of the earth when life originated, but we know for sure it was not what we'd consider "hospitable" based on the majority of life on this planet today. If anything, our current environment is the "extreme" one that life was gradually forced to adapt to... all sorts of unstable, corrosive gasses and exotic chemicals all over the place.

This doesn't surprise me too much. The SCINI Project [calstate.edu] has been finding neat stuff for some time now, even while they were just testing their equipment.

Microbes have even been found living in the ice of the polar plateau (at constant temperatures around -50C).

And check out Anoxycalyx Joubini [escholarship.org] (Volcano Sponge), some specimens of which are thought to be 15,000 years old and still living. These are animals that make those Sequoia look like juveniles.

I wonder why people always talk about possible life on Europa although for layman like me Ganymede seems better candidate: It's big as a planet, less radiation than Europa, molten iron core, water ocean, magnetosphere. All the good stuff and less of the bad.

I guess they want to refine their extreme environment exploration techniques locally before they try it out somewhere out there. Weren't techniques for the moon landings rehearsed in the highland deserts of Iceland? Perfectly reasonable in my opinion.

Did you read the summary? Potentially a very similar environment as Europa. You don't just fly a probe to Europa and learn how to drill a hole on the fly, you practice and rehearse beforehand. Not really a difficult to understand concept...

Phew. I was beginning to worry, because I had read most of the comments and seen not a single "At the Mountains of Madness' reference. Surprising to see so many Clark references when HPL is so much more appropriate in this case...